Interacting with Literature

Listener‟s Guide Call & Response 2010 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert and Elena Ruehr

Join us for a performance of music responding to literature

The Violet, and Death and the Maiden

Call & Response 2010 Concert February 26, 2010, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco

Details inside…

Call & Response 2010: Music Responding to Literature

Concert Friday, February 26, 2010 Herbst Theatre at the San Francisco War Memorial 401 Van Ness Avenue at McAllister Street San Francisco, CA

7:15pm Pre-Performance Lecture by composer Elena Ruehr. 8:00pm Performance

Buy tickets online at: www.cityboxoffice.comor by calling City Box Office: 415-392-4400

Page Contents

3 The Concept: evolution of music over time and across cultures

4 Elena Ruehr

5 Bel Canto: the novel and the music

8 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

9 The Violet: the poem and the music

11 Franz Schubert

12 Death and the Maiden: the poem and the music

14 For further listening

2 Call & Response: The Concept

Have you ever wondered how composers come up with their ideas? The Call & Response program was born out of the Cypress String Quartet‟s commitment to sharing this process.

Why “Call & Response”? We usually associate the term “call & response” with jazz and gospel music, the idea being that the musician plays a musical “call” to which another musician “responds,”—a way of creating a new sound relating in some way to the original. In this program, the “call” is the Cypress String Quartet searching for connections across musical, historical, and social boundaries. The “response” is the creation of a new work by a living composer and an exciting new concert for the community!

Each year, the Cypress String Quartet explores how new music develops out of older music by selecting two pieces from traditional string quartet music and asks a composer to write a third piece based on their inspiration from the traditional pieces.

The Music This year the Cypress examines music inspired by literature by commissioning a piece by Boston-based composer Elena Ruehr. Ruehr chose to respond to a novel by Ann Patchett called Bel Canto. The story describes a gala birthday party being given to honor a Japanese industrialist in an unnamed South American country, when suddenly rebels enter the house and take the guests hostage. As the story unfolds, what happens to both the guests and the terrorists in their ensuing days of captivity is revealed.

Other well known examples of literature based music are Franz Schubert‟s quartet, Death and the Maiden and Mozart's String Quartet in D Major, K. 575, The Violet. Schubert's String Quartet in D Minor is popularly known as the Death and the Maiden Quartet because the second movement is adapted from the accompaniment to Schubert's 1817 song based on the poem by Matthias Claudius. Mozart's The Violet takes its name from a song Mozart wrote in 1785 based on the poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The second movement is based on themes from this song.

The Concert Join the Cypress String Quartet at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco on Friday, February 26. Elena Ruehr will give a pre-concert talk at 7:15pm, and the performance begins at 8:00pm.

Buy tickets online at: www.cityboxoffice.com or by calling City Box Office: 415-392-4400.

Begin your celebration by learning about the composers and their music through the materials we will be showing in this guide. Enjoy learning about these amazing people, their music, and how music styles have changed over time!

3 Music Responding to Literature

Bel Canto by Elena Ruehr

Elena Ruehr

"I read Bel Canto when it first came out about 10 years ago. At the time, I loved it, wanted to write an based on it, but was a bit timid to contact Ann Patchett without an opera company production backing me. By the time I did get a promised production, Bel Canto was already being worked on as an opera with another composer (although that project never came to fruition) and so I wrote my opera on another book (Madison Smartt Bell's All Soul's Rising, which became my opera Toussaint Before the Spirits). When the Cypress asked me to write a new quartet for them, they said they were programming it with Schubert's Death and the Maiden and wanted me to write a quartet, that like Schubert's, was based on a song/poem or piece of literature. My immediate thought was that I wanted to use Samuel Barber's song Crucifixion as a basis for a new quartet--this is a song that I have loved since I was a little girl. Barber's song reminds me of a Japanese folk song, Sakura, and in fact, it uses the same notes as that song in the opening bars of the piano. I have made it a credo to only work with living writers for many years, and so I thought 'Of course, Bel Canto!' Barber's song could easily be one that Roxane Coss, , sings in the book, and, with so many Japanese characters in Bel Canto, the Barber song's relationship to a famous Japanese folk song made everything crystallize. When I wrote to Ann Patchett with the idea and received her blessing, I got to work in earnest.

The Cypress knows that I always travel with a big novel, and in fact, I read for at least an hour every day, as it's one of my great pleasures. My Fifth Quartet, the Bel Canto, combines my greatest loves: the modern novel, gorgeous songs from the 19th and 20th centuries, and my favorite string quartet. the CSQ."

Career In 2007-08, Dr. Ruehr was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, where she wrote Cantata Averno based on poetry of Louise Glück. Ruehr has an ongoing collaboration with poet Elizabeth Alexander and Stephen Salters.

Dr. Ruehr especially enjoys writing for string quartet, in part because of her close working relationship with the award-winning, San Francisco-based Cypress String Quartet. Bel Canto and her Fourth String Quartet were commissioned by the Cypress. Her Third String Quartet was premiered by the Borremeo Quartet at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival. Her first work to receive national recognition, including an ASCAP award, was her First String Quartet (1988). A recording of her string quartets performed by the Cypress Quartet will be available in 2010.

Among her several orchestral works, Shimmer has received the most acclaim. Commissioned by the Metamorphosen Chamber Ensemble, it is available through Albany Records and itunes. According to the American Record Guide Shimmer “brings joy to the listener” and continues to receive performances and radio play worldwide. Ruehr‟s interest in orchestral writing also led to her 4 serving as composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project from 2000-2005. Her early orchestral works include awards from the Cincinnati Symphony, the Omaha Symphony, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

In film, Ruehr completed a score for the 1913 documentary The Manhattan Trade School for Girls.The music “catapulted [the film] into the sublime…” (Bruce Bennett, the Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities). The work is part of the Treasures from the National Film Archives‟ Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film and can be obtained through www.filmpreservation.org.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Summary Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening — until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped. (http://www.annpatchett.com/belcanto.html)

Excerpts from the book that describe the signing of Roxane Coss (demonstrating a literary description of music):

Chapter 7, pages 199-200 ...At his mass, Roxane Coss sang "Ave Maria," an event of such startling beauty that (and he did not wish to sound competitive) it simply could not be topped at any church, anywhere, including Rome. Her voice was so pure, so light, that it opened up the ceiling and carried their petitions directly to God. It swept over them like the feathery dusting of wings, so that even the Catholics who no longer practiced their faith, and the non-Catholics who came along because there was nothing else to do, and all those who had no idea what he was saying, and the stone-cold atheists who wouldn't have cared anyway, because of her singing they all went away feeling moved, feeling comforted, feeling, perhaps, the slightest tremors of faith.

Chapter 10, page 308 Cesar had his lesson in the morning, and no matter how hard he begged them to go outside, everyone sat down and listened. He was improving so quickly, even the other boys knew that what they were seeing was more interesting than television. He didn't sound a thing like Roxane anymore. He was finding his own depth. Every morning, he unfolded his voice before them like a rare jeweled fan; the more you listened, the more intricate it became. The crowd assembled in the living room could always count on the fact that he would be even better than he had been the day before. That was what was so astonishing about it. He had yet to show the slightest hint of finding the edges of what he was capable of. He sang with hypnotic passion and then with passionate lust. How impossible it seemed, so much voice pouring out of such an average boy. His arms still hung useless at his sides.

5 Chapter 10, page 309 Kato had transcribed the music from Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the piano and his fingers sprang high off the keys as if they were scorching to the touch. There was a time when she had missed the orchestra, the sweet weight of so many violins in front of her, but she never thought about it now. She stepped into the music as if it was a cool stream on a hot day and began "Una Voce Poco Fa." The music sounded exactly right to her now, and she thought this was the way Rossini had always intended it to be. Despite what anyone might whisper, she could certainly compete, and she could win. Her singing was a meringue, and when she trilled past the highest notes she put her hands on her hips and rocked them back and forth, smiling wickedly at the audience. She was an actress, too. She must teach that part to Cesar. A thousand wayward tricks, and subtle wiles, I'd play before they should guide my will. They cheered for her. Oh, how they loved those ridiculously high notes, the impossible acrobatics that she tossed off as if they were nothing at all. At the end she made them dizzy, and then she threw up her hands and said, "Outside, all of you," even though they didn't know what she was saying, they followed her command and went out into the sunlight.

Bel Canto by Elena Ruehr (2009) A string quartet in ten movements, ca 26 minutes, based on the novel by Ann Patchett Commissioned by and lovingly dedicated to the Cypress String Quartet

Bel Canto is the story of a rebel hostage-taking in an unnamed South American country during a celebratory dinner at the vice-president‟s mansion. The story gradually transforms from the account of a crisis into a tale of music, friendship, and love. The main characters include Vice-president Iglesias, Mr. Hosokawa, a Japanese businessman, his translator, Gen, Roxane Coss, the soprano who has been hired for the occasion, Simon Thibault, the French ambassador, the rebel generals, and two of the younger rebel soldiers: Carmen and Cesar. This string quartet uses four songs that Roxane Coss might have sung in the concert she gives in the first chapter of the book. Two songs are mentioned throughout the novel: Puccini‟s Vissi d’arte (from Tosca) and Dvorak‟s Song to the Moon (from Rusalka). I chose two other songs that an opera singer might choose at a small concert: Barber‟s Crucifixion and Schubert‟s Doppelganger. Although I never present the songs exactly as they appear in the original, they are sometimes directly quoted and sometimes used as more abstract source material to form all the music in the new quartet.

I. Rebels in the vents This movement is based on Vissi d’arte (beginning) and Song to the Moon (end). Violin 1 represents the sound of Roxane‟s voice as the rebels sneak through the vents. The rhythm is inspired by South American dance music.

II. Three generals Schubert‟s song, Doppelganger, is the source, but the music moves relentlessly faster and higher than the original.

III. Esmeralda and Joachim This movement tries to capture the character of people who remain calm in the face of trauma. The ostinato-like driving rhythm represents the carefully maintained anxiety of a roomful of people. It also presents the action of sewing as Esmeralda, the nanny, calmly stitches closed a wound on vice- president Iglesia‟s face. Joachim is a hostage negotiator on vacation who is called in to help. The harmonic material is subtly derived from Barber‟s song, Crucifixion (dedicated to Seward Rutkove).

6 IV. The accompanist dies Barber‟s Crucifixion comes to the fore in this movement. The melody is divided amongst the instruments. The various instruments represent voices in a chorus—including Roxane (soprano), the priest, Vice-president Iglesias, and Mr. Hosokawa—expressing the general sentiment of loss.

V. Simon Thibault makes coq au vin A lovely light hearted moment in the book, this is based on Vissi d’arte, but now with the focus on a simplified and light version of its ending material.

VI. Gen translates for Roxane Here, the harmony is derived from the famous Japanese folk song Sakura and is combined with the rhythmic drive of South American dance music. The cello acts as the voice of Fyodorov, a Russian ambassador and romantic, and also Mr. Hosokawa. Violin 1 is Roxane, and at center stage, but not obviously, is the viola, playing the part of Gen, the translator.

VII. Carmen studies grammar Carmen is a young rebel woman. She is a naturally gifted linguist and her love of language brings her to Gen, who illicitly studies grammar with her in a closet, late at night, after all the others are sleeping. Here, the viola and cello use the opening of Dvorak‟s Song to the Moon as a basis for musical grammar, as violin 1 (Carmen) and violin 2 (Gen) begin their studies. As the piece progresses, Carmen becomes more and more certain of her skills, until she excels in such an astonishing way that Gen is visibly impressed. She is embarrassed and stops suddenly.

VIII. Gen arranges a meeting Based entirely upon the modernist opening bars in the piano accompaniment of Barber‟s Crucifixion, this movement is both intense and cautious. Throughout the novel, Gen arranges meetings: between Mr. Hosokawa and Roxane Coss, between himself and Carmen, and between the hostage negotiator and the rebel generals.

IX. Cesar sings One of the young rebel guards, Cesar, is a natural singer, and he imitates Roxane‟s voice in his own naïve way. Here the viola takes center stage, using the melody of Barber‟s Crucifixion with an accompaniment loosely based upon a kind of dance music Cesar might have grown up with.

X. In the garden Carmen leads Gen into the mansion‟s walled garden. Later Cesar runs into the garden, and eventually, all the hostages are released into the garden for some fresh air. Soon the rebels and hostages find themselves relaxing together: playing soccer, pulling weeds, running, singing, and enjoying the sun. But the festivities soon come to their abrupt and inevitable conclusion. And it is in another garden in Italy, months later, that several of the characters meet again to celebrate a wedding.

7 Examples from history:

String Quartet No. 21 in D Major, K. 575, The Violet, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, (1756-1791)

Right: Mozart circa 1780, by Johann Nepomuk della Croce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart)

Who was he? Mozart was a Classical Era composer born into a musical family in Salzburg. Mozart's father, Leopold, was the vice kapellmeister (choir master) to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and a minor composer; Mozart's older sister, Maria Anna (called "Nannerl"), was an accomplished keyboardist at a very early age. Born in Salzburg, Austria, Mozart began learning to play the clavier when he was only three.

Leopold wanted to share his talented children with the world! So between 1762-1773, the Mozart family traveled all across Europe, where young Wolfgang and Nanerl performed for royality and public audiences. This was an important time in Mozart's life as he met many influential people from Salzburg to Paris, from London to Rome, and finally, Vienna. Starting in 1773, Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo.

Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781, where he spent the last ten years of his short life.

Education Mozart's father, Leopold, noticed that Wolfgang took to music at a very early age. By the time Mozart was 5, he had already learned his first clavier piece in only thirty minutes! Leoplold was Wolfgang's only teacher in his earliest years, and taught his children languages and academic subjects as well as music. Wolfgang was keen to make progress beyond what he was being taught. His first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the violin were on his own initiative. Leopold eventually gave up composing when his son's outstanding musical talents became evident.

Mozart learned a great deal while he was on tour as well: at every stage of their travels the Mozarts acquired music that was not readily available in Salzburg or met composers and performers who did not normally travel in south Germany and Austria.

Career In 1773, Mozart became a court musician for Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo, the ruler of Salzburg. While in Salzburg, Mozart was able to write a large output of many different genres: symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, serenades, and a few minor . Mozart grew frustrated with living and working in Salzburg and began looking for employment elsewhere. He finally settled in Vienna in 1781. 8

Mozart became known as a great keyboard player and composer. Some of his most famous works were written in the last ten years of his life. This includes great operas such as The Magic , Don Giovanni, and The Marriage of Figaro; as well as a number of symphonies and string quartets, including a set of three string quartets known as the "Prussian Quartets." The first quartet of these three is the String Quartet in D Major, K. 575.

The Violet: the song and poem The Violet is a song composed by Mozart. The text is derived from a poem written by German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The Violet

EXHALING sweet a violet stood, Retiring, and of modest mood, In truth, a violet fair. Then came a youthful shepherdess, And roam‟d with sprightly joyousness, And blithely woo‟d With carols sweet the air.

“Ah!” thought the violet, “had I been For but the smallest moment e‟en Nature‟s most beauteous flower, ‟Till gather‟d by my love, and press‟d, When weary, ‟gainst her gentle breast, For e‟en, for e‟en One quarter of an hour!”

Alas! alas! the maid drew nigh, The violet fail‟d to meet her eye, She crush‟d the violet sweet. It sank and died, yet murmur‟d not: “And if I die, oh, happy lot, For her I die, And at her very feet!”

Here is a YouTube video of Bay Area vocalist, Anja Strauss, performing The Violet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J2_LP2I870&feature=related

The Violet: the Quartet While traveling in Germany in the spring of 1789, Mozart presented himself before Frederick William II, the King of Prussia, in the hopes of a commission. The King was an accomplished cellist and patron of music and he lived up to these expectations, asking for a set of six „easy clavier sonatas‟ for his daughter and six string quartets for himself. Mozart composed his first of this final set of quartets, the String Quartet No. 21 in D Major, K. 575, in June of 1789, prominently featuring the cello in every movement, as an obvious „nod‟ to the cello-playing King. The second movement of the Quartet barrows themes and musical ideas from the song written in 1785.

9 The composer only managed to finish half of the “planned set of six” the following year (and only ever managed to write one of the clavier sonatas). Mozart had many reasons to have such difficulty with this commission. He was depressed, and his health was extremely poor at this time. His letters speak of headaches, toothaches and arthritis, and his wife, who was pregnant with a fifth child, complained of an agonizing foot condition. Just one year prior, he lost his father and two of his children. Mozart was desperately short of money and the pleading letters to his friends show how destitute he was feeling. Eager for any income, Mozart sold the three completed quartets to a publisher, for a small sum. Mozart‟s music certainly did not match his mood. These quartets are optimistic and buoyant, and although they were never given any dedication and were never sent to King William II, these three pieces are known nonetheless as the ‘Prussian Quartets’. The premiere of the graceful and sunny K. 575 Quartet was given at Mozart‟s lodgings in Vienna on May 22, 1790, most likely with the composer playing viola. The set of three quartets were published by Artaria, three weeks after Mozart‟s death in 1791, and have become some of his most beloved works.

Taken from: www.mozartproject.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart, Oxford Music Online, and http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2110&chapter=162897&layout=html&Itemid=27

10 Death and the Maiden by Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert, (1797 - 1828)

Left: 1875 oil painting by Wilhelm August Rieder, after his own 1825 watercolor portrait (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Schubert)

Who was he? Schubert was an Austrian composer, and one of fourteen children born to his father, nine of whom died in infancy. Their father was a well-known teacher who ran a school in Lichtental.

Schubert is well known for the number of songs he wrote, about 600 songs, as well as for his original melodic and harmonic writing in general. He also wrote nine symphonies, some operas, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music.

While Schubert had a close circle of friends who admired his work, he wasn‟t a “famous” composer until after he died. He was never able to find steady employment, and for most of his career he relied on the support of friends and family. In the last year of his life he began to become better known. He died at the age of 31, apparently of complications from syphilis.

Interest in Schubert's work increased dramatically in the years following his death. Famous, respected composers including Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, and Felix Mendelssohn discovered, collected, and championed his works in the 19th century. Franz Schubert is now widely considered to be one of the greatest composers in the Western tradition.

Education When he was just five years old, Schubert started regular instruction from his father and a year later began his formal musical education. He studied the violin, piano, and viola. He also played the viola in the family string quartet, with his brothers on violin and his father on the cello. Schubert wrote many of his early string quartets for this ensemble.

Vienna's leading musical authority at the time, Antonio Salieri, found out about Schubert when he was just seven. By age eleven, he became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt (Imperial seminary) through a choir scholarship. Here, Schubert was introduced to the overtures and symphonies of Mozart. His exposure to these pieces and various lighter compositions, combined with his occasional visits to the opera set the foundation for his greater musical knowledge.

Meanwhile, his musical abilities developed further, as evidenced in his music. Schubert was occasionally permitted to lead the Stadtkonvikt's orchestra, and Salieri decided to begin training him privately in musical composition and theory in these years. It was the first germ of that amateur orchestra for which, in later years, many of his compositions were written.

11 Career When he was 16, Schubert returned home to train as a teacher. He taught the youngest students at his father's school for over two years while continuing his private lessons in composition from Salieri, who did more for Schubert‟s musical training than any of his other teachers.

Schubert's most prolific year was 1815. He composed over 20,000 bars of music, more than half of which were for orchestra; including nine church works, a symphony, and about 140 songs. In 1823 Schubert wrot his first song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, setting poems by Wilhelm Müller. Also in that year, symptoms of syphilis first appeared.

In 1822 he began the "Unfinished Symphony" (Symphony No. 8 in B minor). Why the symphony was "unfinished" has been debated endlessly without resolution. In the spring of 1828 he gave, for the first and only time in his career, a public concert of his own works, which was very well received. The String Quartet in D minor, with the variations on Death and the Maiden, was written during 1824. The works of his last two years reveal the darker side Schubert‟s thoughts. Schubert expressed the wish, were he to survive his final illness, to further develop his knowledge of harmony and counterpoint.

Death In the midst of this creative activity, his health deteriorated. The syphilis he had contracted in 1822 was taking its toll. The final illness may have been typhoid fever. His solace in his final illness was reading, and he had become a passionate fan of the writings of James Fenimore Cooper. He died aged 31 on Wednesday November 19, 1828 at the apartment of his brother Ferdinand in Vienna. By his own request, he was buried next to Beethoven, whom he had adored all his life, in the village cemetery of Währing.

In 1872, a memorial to Franz Schubert was erected in Vienna's Stadtpark. Sixteen years later, both Schubert's and Beethoven's graves were moved to the Zentralfriedhof, where they can now be found next to those of Johann Strauss II and Johannes Brahms. The cemetery in Währing was converted into a park in 1925, called the Schubert Park, and his old gravesite was marked by a bust.

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Schubert

Death and the Maiden: the Song and Poem Death and the Maiden is a song composed by Franz Schubert. The text is derived from a poem written by German poet Matthias Claudius. The song is set for voice and piano:

The Maiden:

Pass me by! Oh, pass me by! Go, fierce man of bones! I am still young, rather go! And do not touch me.

Death:

Give me your hand, you beautiful and tender form! I am a friend, and come not to punish. Be of good cheer! I am not fierce,

12 Softly in my arms shall you sleep!

Death and the Maiden: the Quartet Franz Schubert‟s Quartet in d minor, D. 810 Death and the Maiden, is one of the composer‟s greatest and best known works. Composed in 1824, his 14th Quartet is filled with relentless urgency and intensity. Schubert had been suffering from bouts of illness, brought on by the syphilis he contracted in 1822. He wrote to a friend at this time: “I feel myself to be the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world. Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, and who, in sheer despair over this, makes things worse instead of better. Each night, on retiring to bed, I hope I may not wake again, and each morning just recalls yesterday‟s grief.” The suffering and lack of treatment, coupled with the knowledge of his mortality perhaps led him to reflect on his song, Death and the Maiden, which he composed just after his 18th birthday in 1817.

In the song, Death and the Maiden, Schubert sets Claudius‟ poem of a conversation which takes place between two characters (as you can see in the text above): a young girl and Death. In the second movement of his d minor Quartet, Andante con moto, Schubert revisits a portion of the song‟s theme, and treats it to a series of variations.

The composer chooses only Death‟s refrain. There is little soothing about Schubert‟s treatment of Death‟s theme.

The piano accompaniment from the song was used as the theme in the second movement of Schubert's Death and the Maiden Quartet in 1824. Though the Quartet in d minor, Death and the Maiden, is one of the most beloved works for quartet today, it is surprising to note that until 40 years after his death, Schubert‟s music was not popular and he struggled to be heard. Schubert lived all of his life under the shadow of another Viennese composer: Ludwig van Beethoven. Composer Felix Mendelssohn dismissed Death and the Maiden for what he called the quartet‟s “faulty structure” and for not being more clearly in sonata form. The publisher, Schott, was releasing Beethoven‟s late quartets when Schubert wrote this piece, and refused to issue Death and the Maiden. Schubert was however, able to hear two performances of the piece in 1826 at private homes in Vienna. The work was not published until 1831, three years after his death.

There are also play and film versions of Death and the Maiden which take their titles from the song.

13 For further listening Other music inspired by literature

Don Quixote, Op. 35 (1897) By Richard Strauss A tone poem for cello, viola, and large orchestra Based on: Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes

The Kreutzer Sonata By Leos Janacek String Quartet Based on: The Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy‟s

String Quartet No. 3, ...Songs are Sung (2005) By Henryk Gorecki String Quartet Based on: The quartet‟s title is inspired by the last line of a poem by the Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov, “When people die, they sing songs.”

Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 (1888) & Suite No. 2, Op. 55 (1891) By Edvard Greig Two suites based on the incidentel music written for a play Based on: Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen

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